Report 2009-101 Recommendations

When an audit is completed and a report is issued, auditees must provide the State Auditor with information regarding their progress in implementing recommendations from our reports at three intervals from the release of the report: 60 days, six months, and one year. Additionally, Senate Bill 1452 (Chapter 452, Statutes of 2006), requires auditees who have not implemented recommendations after one year, to report to us and to the Legislature why they have not implemented them or to state when they intend to implement them. Below, is a listing of each recommendation the State Auditor made in the report referenced and a link to the most recent response from the auditee addressing their progress in implementing the recommendation and the State Auditor's assessment of auditee's response based on our review of the supporting documentation.

Recommendations in Report 2009-101: Department of Social Services: For the CalWORKs and Food Stamp Programs, It Lacks Assessments of Cost-Effectiveness and Misses Opportunities to Improve Counties' Antifraud Efforts (Release Date: November 2009)

To ensure that all counties consistently gauge the cost-effectiveness of their early fraud activities and ongoing investigation efforts for the CalWORKs and food stamp programs, Social Services should work with the counties to develop a formula to regularly perform a cost-effectiveness analysis using information that the counties currently submit.

To make certain that counties receive the greatest benefit from the resources they spend on antifraud efforts related to CalWORKs and food stamp cases, Social Services should, using the results from the recommended cost-effectiveness analysis, determine why some counties' efforts to combat welfare fraud are more cost-effective than others.

To make certain that counties receive the greatest benefit from the resources they spend on antifraud efforts related to CalWORKs and food stamp cases, Social Services should seek to replicate the most cost-effective practices among all counties.

To make certain that counties receive the greatest benefit from the resources they spend on antifraud efforts related to CalWORKs and food stamp cases, Social Services should continue to address the recommendations of the steering committee and promptly act on the remaining recommendations

To ensure the accuracy and consistency of the information on welfare fraud activities that counties report and that Social Services subsequently reports to the federal government, the Legislature, and internal users, Social Services should take the following steps: Remind counties that they are responsible for reviewing the accuracy and consistency of investigation activity reports before submission.

To ensure the accuracy and consistency of the information on welfare fraud activities that counties report and that Social Services subsequently reports to the federal government, the Legislature, and internal users, Social Services should provide counties with feedback on how to correct and prevent errors that it detects during this review.

To ensure the accuracy and consistency of the information on welfare fraud activities that counties report and that Social Services subsequently reports to the federal government, the Legislature, and internal users, Social Services should continue with regular meetings of its workgroup to further its efforts to clarify its instructions for completing the counties' investigation activity reports.

To ensure that counties are consistently following up on all match lists, Social Services should remind counties of their responsibility under state regulations to follow up diligently on all match lists. Further, it should work with counties to determine why poor follow-up exists and address those reasons.

To ensure that counties are consistently following up on all match lists, Social Services should revive its efforts to work with counties and federal agencies to address the counties' concerns about match list formats and criteria.

Social Services should track how counties determine prosecution thresholds for welfare fraud cases and determine the effects of these thresholds on counties' decisions to investigate potential fraud, with a focus on determining best practices and cost-effective methods. It should then work with counties to implement the consistent use of these cost-effective methods.

To ensure the accuracy and consistency of the information on welfare fraud activities that counties report and that Social Services subsequently reports to the federal government, the Legislature, and internal users, Social Services should perform more diligent reviews of the counties' investigation activity reports to verify the accuracy of the information submitted.

To ensure that counties are consistently following up on all match lists, Social Services should perform IEVS reviews of all counties regularly and better enforce the counties implementation of its recommendations to correct any findings and verify implementation of the corrective action plans submitted.

Recognizing that the deterrence effect is difficult to measure, Social Services should develop a method that allows it to gauge the cost effectiveness of SFIS. Social Services should include in its efforts to measure cost effectiveness the administrative cost that counties incur for using SFIS. Based on its results, Social Services should determine whether the continued use of SFIS is justified.

To expedite the distribution of the $42.1 million in food stamp overpayment collections to the appropriate entities, Social Services should continue to work with the USDA and make its reconciliation of the backlog of overpayments a priority. Further, it should develop procedures to ensure that it promptly reconciles future overpayments. Additionally, Social Services should continue to monitor the counties collection reports to ensure that counties are reporting accurate information.